Why I created a blog

Its been many years since I first created this blog. It has remained true to Essbase and related information over those years. Hopefully it has answered questions and given you insight over those years. I will continue to provide my observations and comments on the ever changing world of EPM. Don't be surprised if the scope of the blog changes and brings in other Hyperion topics.

Friday, September 23, 2016

The week at Open World for me was sessions, lots of meetings with Oracle and meetups. At one I was talking with Aneel Shenker the product manager for Essbase Studio. We somehow got on the topic of migrating from EIS to Essbase Studio. I told him that I typically rebuild the models because it is difficult to get the migration wizard to work.

From the migration document (some of the formatting is mine)

1 Ensure that your EIS metaoutlines and models complies with the guidelines listed in the Essbase Studio user's Guide in the Chapter "Guidelines for Migrating Metaoutlines and Models" and "Properties Not Migrated".2. Install Studio Console on a 32-bit machine. Note: If you are planning to install the EPM bundled ODBC drivers it should be a server operating system.3. On the 32-bit machine where Studio console is installed, install ODBC drivers that works with the EIS catalog database.Note: You can install the DataDirect ODBC drivers that are shipped with EPM by installing EPM Foundation Components. However, there is no need to run the EPM System configurator, installation is enough to install the drivers.4. Create a User DSN that can connect to the EIS Catalog database. Note: It must be a User DSN, not a System DSN.5. Ensure that you can connect to the EIS Catalog database through the ODBC User DSN on the 32-bit machine. Note: EIS Server does not need to be running6. Ensure Studio Server is running. Note: Studio Server can be running on a separate 64-bit machine.7. In Essbase Studio, create a data source that points to the same source database that was used for EIS.

EIS to Studio Migration Steps
1. Start Studio console on the 32-bit machine and connect to the Studio Server where the EIS catalog should be migrated to.2. In Studio console, start the EIS migration tool. (Tools-> Essbase Integration Services Catalog migration)3. Fill in the "EIS Catalog ODBC DSN field", the "User' and "Password" field.4. Click the "Fetch models" button, and the EIS models should be listed.5. You can now choose- the matching Data source connection that was used for EIS. Note: Typically different from the EIS Catalog connection- the EIS Catalog and Schema from the drop down. Note: If your relational database is Oracle, selecting a catalog is not required.6. Select a folder where the migrated metaoutline and model should be put7. Click the Migrate button8. If there are any errors, double-check check that all documented guidelines are followed.
Note: If the migration does not work, it is possible that it is needed to rebuild the models from scratch in Essbase Studio. There are cases that are too complex for the EIS Catalog migration to work.You should largely still be able to use the source tables that you were using with EIS, although a few tweaks might be needed.

Thank you Aneel for providing the community with this much needed information

Thursday, September 22, 2016

This will just be a short post that might help you out.
A number of Ace Director friends and I met with the Oracle Smart View Team at Oracle Open world this week and evangelized for you all on changes to the product. More posts will be coming out from all of us on some things we learned and if you follow us all there might be overlap. We just want to get the word out to as many as we know.

One thing that came out during the meeting is there are two Excel Add-ins that cause issues for Smart View and it is suggested you turn them off when using Smart View.
The first is the Webex add-in and the second is the Adobe PDF add-in. something in the way they take control of spreadsheets messes with smart view functionality and stability.

I'll be putting a slightly longer blog post together later on some Knowledge base articles that help with fixing some common problems.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Just a short post today. Everyone else in the world probably knows this, but I
learned something new working with FCCS and dimension security. I was having an
issue where I had not set up security on a number of dimensions, but when I
used a non-admin user, and tried to retrieve data in Smart View I got nothing
more than the dimension name and #No access

It took working with Development to figure out the issue. It
turns out in FCCS you can “Unsecure” dimensions that were secured in FCCS (and
probably PBCS and EPBCS). When I set up the application, it secured all of the
dimensions, without me knowing it. In order to see the members, I had to
actually add security rules to every dimension to get data.

That should not have been necessary.What I discovered (with oracle Help) was that
at the dimension level, you have to turn on or off security. There is a check
box that sets it. Last I remember, on-prem, this was greyed out and could not
be unset once set. In FCCS, you can turn it on or off.

Once I removed the security rules I added and unchecked it,
everything worked hunky dory! I could see the hierarchies and my retrieval now retrieves data.